St John, Bishop of the Goths.

Commemorated May 19 in the Orthodox Christian Menaion

From the Prologue

He was bishop in Georgia, but when a local Tartar Khan began to torture the Christians, he went off and spent four years among the Goths in Bessabara (a Gothic diocese formed in the time of Constantine the Great). Hearing of the death of the Khan, he returned to his work and guided his flock with zeal and godliness. Before his death, he said: 'In forty days I shall go to judgement with the Khan' (that is: through death, he was going before the throne of God). And thus it was. On the fortieth day, he passed away and went to the Lord. He entered peacefully into rest in the 8th century.

From The Prologue From Ochrid by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich
©1985 Lazarica Press, Birmingham UK